12 June 2009

Reflections Upon Falling in Love with God

The Bible is a library within a single book cover. You have within the covers of the Bible history, poetry, and letters. There is enough violence and sex therein to please the palate of a Hollywood producer.

Today's reading from Song of Solomon is taken by mystics to refer to the mystical spiritual relations between Christ and the church. I'm not sure that is what the author had in mind when these love poems were written.

However, they do convey some of what mystics such as Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross experienced in their relationship with God. In essence, they remind us of the possibility for a relationship with God that goes beyond intellectual consent down into the more irrational and connectional parts of our being. It is possible, they remind us, to actually fall in love with God.

The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.

My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away."